Day 1 of 100 days of happiness 

A chocolatey gift brought all the way back from Germany from my German housemate!

Living with people from other cultures has been one of the most eye-opening aspects of doing my year abroad, as you get a truly realistic peep into their respective country and culture just from the little every day occurrences. Last term, one sunny morning, my Spanish housemate watched me make a fried egg on toast in absolute, wide-eyed awe, and instantly asked me to make her one so that she could learn how to do it herself when I wasn't there. Similarly, my Italian housemate's idea of 'rustling something quick up for dinner' was hand rolling some gnocchi from scratch, putting my baked beans on toast to complete shame. Despite the language barriers too, its surprising how well we have come to know each other, having gradually come to cover every subject under the sun from politics to our childhoods to chicos and everything in between, continually comparing how things are done in each of our countries. Perhaps the hardest thing for my housemates to come to grips with has been my British sense of humor and constant sarcasm, which often leaves them confused and with a lasting impression that I am a bit of an oddball! 

The Lesser Spotted Year Abroadee

The Year Abroadee: Similar to The Gap Yahee, The Year Abroadee can be identified by a loud audible voice braying about how culturally different England is to their chosen country and how interesting it is to have friends from all over the world. They particularly enjoy showing off their cooking skills that they picked up off one of their many South American friends and showing you their impressive shot glass collection from every city they visited throughout the year. They turn their nose up at mainstream music, preferring foreign artists who remind them of the 'best year of their lives,' and if you can't share their passion then it is simply a matter of 'you had to be there, darling.' 

Mostly spotted hanging around the Erasmus bar of their uni, in the hope of recreating the Erasmus experience by surrounding themselves with other people who can't speak their mother tongue, The Year Abroadee finds it particularly hard to adapt to normal life back in England. They will refuse to eat dinner with the family, insisting that it is about 5 hours too early and instead will isolate themselves in their den (plastered with year abroad photos) in order to take the compulsory or-I-wont-be-able-to-function siesta. When coming back from a night on the town, it is easy to discern the Year-Abroadee as they are the last person in the discoteca, screaming to anyone that will listen that 3 o'clock really is too early to be heading home while security try to prise yet another tequila shot from their desperate grip.

The Year Abroadee is easy to spot by the strange spanglish that they adopt into every-day language even when back in England. They forget how to swear in English, preferring the use of Spanish swearwords to make them appear more even cultured, and constantly forgetting the word for something in English and therefore having to resort to Spanish or hand gestures to an unimpressed shop assistant.

The Year Abroadee is also an expert on social spending, that is, the act of spending money in the aim of socialising. Before departing on a Year Abroad, The Year Abroadee begins life as a tight-fisted student, ordering a tap water instead of coffee and never pre drinking outside of its normal home habitat. Post year abroad however, The unrecognisable Year Abroadee will think nothing of ordering countless coffees and billions of beers, accustomed as they are to an unearned sum of money magically appearing in their account every term as well as much lower prices found abroad, a comparison they will not cease from making when purchasing anything in England.

When you come across a Year Abroadee, do not nod and smile while backing away slowly- show some kindness and humour them in their endless stories about that one time they got really drunk whilst travelling. Remember we will (nearly) all come back from abroad at least one time in our lives and if you show some compassion and understanding we can slowly help the Year Abroadee to integrate back into normal society.

Pack Up Your Troubles

Packing. I even hate writing the word. If I had a penny for every time I had started a list with the word 'Packing,' before tossing the list aside to  do something I would normally never even contemplate, such as knitting or bird watching, I would at least be able to buy myself a new suitcase. Having been to boarding school for 2 years as well as alternating between divorced parents from a young age, packing should as a result be second nature to me. Admittedly, boarding school did give me a valuable life skill in teaching me the wondrous technique of rolling ALL of your clothes to a small spring roll size, thus allowing you to fit double the clothes in, a useful party trick for impressing all of your friends. However the point is that packing has to be one of the most odious, boring, tedious tasks in the world, aside from watching paint dry and explaining to your granny what twerking is.


How do you fit your whole entire life into one measly 15 kg suitcase (Ryanair I'm looking at you)? Packing becomes an x factor of all of your possessions, with only the best  reaching the final round  ( debatable re: x factor). I've started to think that choosing what you are going to pack for the first time is the equivalent to choosing what kind of experience you are going to have in your destination, what kind of person you want to come across as and perhaps also what you want to come back with. I, for example, heartily dismissing the thought that I would need a single jumper, stuffed my suitcase full of summer clothes that I could no longer fit into, in the vain hope that on my arrival to Spain the sun would suddenly burn off my Christmas fat and I would magically fit into them all. I also packed my tennis racket, despite not having had lessons since I was 5, as well as an unhealthy amount of notebooks in the hope of becoming a famous author overnight, imagining myself surreptitiously sipping coffee outside a cafe in the sun and scribbling ferociously, which show how I wanted to learn new skills on my year abroad that I would never get around to starting in my normal life.


Perhaps more telling are the things you don't pack, whether it be a conscious decision or a subliminal act. Without wanting to sound too typical-girl-ish, consciously not packing photos that featured my recent ex-boyfriend actually helped the getting-over-him process, decluttering both my mind as well as my suitcase. Just like that, packing becomes a way of clearing your emotional baggage too (oh my gosh I'm so sorry I just couldn't resist!). The act of not packing something, whether it be a childhood toy, cigarettes, your ipad or even your makeup allows you to mentally step away and start afresh without them. Yes, you could just buy more makeup and cigarettes in duty-free, but the very act of not packing these things you wanted to escape from in the first place at least displays a desire to change or experience a different way of life to the one your are accustomed, and the first step to achieving whatever it is you want your year abroad to be for you.


By not packing these things you also leave space for the countless new things that you will accumulate throughout your year abroad (though still have not worked out what to do with bongo drum bought impulsively in Morrocco). I think I might adopt the catchy new saying of 'like suitcase, like mind,' whereby I shall try and leave space in my head for all of the new things I accumulate in Spain, and leave the thoughts that wont be useful in my room at home, probably under a cat. Looking at packing in this light makes it a much more exciting task!

So far

I thought I would start with a  rundown of my top 3 favourite moments of this term in Spain, from the beautiful and the bizarre, to the oh-my-god-what-the-f-is-happening moments. In no particular order....

1) JOSE DE LA TUNA

Now an infamous name across Murcia, Jose has taught me a valuable piece of Spanish vocabulary- 'Tuna.' When Jose texted me one dull afternoon asking what I was up to that night, I couldn't quite remember where I had met him but not wanting to be rude I invited him to our flat party. Little did I know, and now never will I forget, that 'Tuna' is the Spanish word for 'Band,' and 'Band' in turn means 10 Spanish men dressed in traditional Spanish costume complete with guitars, lutes and bells and whistles (quite literally). The evening was great- what wasn't SO great was our landlord threatening to cancel our contract. Oh well, the night was totally worth the daily looks of hate we get from our Spanish neighbors when we cross in the lobby.

Which one was Jose?? The everlasting question.. 

2) GRANADA 

Granada; home of the Alhambra Palace, Lorca, cheap tapas, and for two days, some 30 Erasmus students and 1 questionable Spanish guide who went by the name of 'Lolo' (meaning 'grandpa' in the Philippines and 'lover' in Argentina, but I digress). The day started off well by a morning visit to the beautiful Alhambra palace, whose minutely detailed Muslim architecture was awe-inspiring, however things quickly went downhill from here as perhaps still on a sight-seeing induced high tequila shots were ordered with lunch. What was to follow would end up with our guide in hospital and 29 Erasmus students (one student in particular having peaked too early and deciding that it would be safer for everyone if she went to bed) wandering around the streets of Granada making the locals run for their lives (quite literally at one point). 

Hazy flashbacks include wandering into a flamenco performance and joining in, putting our Spanish to the test by convincing a couple on their first date to get married (I still wonder about them sometimes), and stopping cars in order to inform the occupants of the drinks deals in a bar close by. Ok, I admit, having written it down it is much harder to see the funny side, and although I really don't want to be one of those year abroadees who constantly mutter 'oh but you had to BE there,' but, well, urm, maybe you did sorry. 

Let's admire all the lovely Granada architecture...from the floor 

It started off so well 

3) MOROCCO 

What a rich, amazing beautiful place. Despite our driver getting lost and turning the first day into a 23 hour coach trip, riding camels into the desert and camping overnight under the stars ( totally freezing) made the numb bottoms worthwhile. 

The bustling markets of Marrakesh, once you get over the shock that the man who has just deposited a baby monkey on your shoulder is actually expecting some kind of financial remuneration, are brimming with every colour imaginable accompanied by smells of leather and spices and sounds of vendors attempting to entice passers-by with all sorts of things you never thought you needed until now. We quickly became dangerously addicted to the 'haggling high,' that euphoria you feel having bought something for a fraction of the asking price (or perhaps it was the 24+ cups of Moroccan tea, I'm not sure), pushing down prices like there was no tomorrow and convincing sellers that we were Belgian in order to account for our dodgy french accents. 

Haggling in Tesco is just not the same, especially when they call the manager. Ahem. Thanks to this trip I have mastered the art of sleeping for hours on a bus, saying thank-you in arabic and how much a camel costs. True life lessons!

Why Now?

The past 2 months and 21 days have flown by, and despite repeatedly making mental notes that I should be documenting every single little thing that happens on my year abroad, I never really got round to it for as soon as the thought crossed my mind it would be replaced by salsa, sangria, numerous trips or even cliff diving at one point (more on these later!).  But I have finally laid down my maracas (I don’t know if that’s a saying but it should be), picked up a pen (or my laptop) and taken the plunge.  It may be cringey, it may be generic, and it will probably only be read by my granny, but the need both to document and procrastinate has become too strong. I shall try my best not to recount every mundane occurrence of my daily life here as an Erasmus student in Murcia, but will try to provide advice to those with a year abroad looming, to record some great memories that I don’t want to forget, and maybe even a more serious post or two, all blended in of course with a a sprinkling of photos and silliness!